Good timing on this album, as I started reading Crying in H Mart last week. Or was finally checking this out from the library, subconsciously influenced by the summer album list? We'll never know.
This is a beautiful, brooding, and cohesive album. It's different from the earlier pop sounds of Japanese Breakfast. But what really stood out to me was the use of mythology to reinforce themes of femininity, transformation, and grief. In "Orlando in Love," we see the obvious reference to Boiardo's Orlando Innamorato, where Orlando is smitten by Angelica to the point that his love for her overwhelms his sound reasoning and sense of duty as a knight. It's a story where Orlando wrestles with themes of desire and destiny as he navigates a magical journey full of side quests. When I think of Venus, as referenced in this song, I think about how she is born from sea foam and embodies the female archetype of yearning and femininity. Transformation comes from the powerful and creative nature of the sea in her origin story. After the titan Cronus castrates Uranus, he throws his genitals into the sea, which fertilizes it and forms a foam, and from that foam comes Aphrodite (Venus). Her beauty and softness come from pain and chaos.
When we hear "Leda," we can think of the time when Zeus transformed into a swan form and acted distressed to gain the sympathy of Leda, the Queen of Sparta. She acted to protect him before he overpowered and raped her. She later gave birth to two eggs from which we get Helen of Troy (yes, the cause of the Trojan War), Clytemnestra (Agamemnon's wife, the king who leads the Greeks in the Trojan War), Castor, and Pollux (think Jason and the Argonauts. As an aside, is this movie on the Film Club list? I loved this growing up, and I am trying not to get sucked into watching it now, haha). Leda's children are a mix of the divine and human, resulting from the combination of her genes, her husband King Tyndareus's, and Zeus's. As we enter the summer months, I often think about this myth, as Cygnus, or the Swan, is easily visible in the night sky. Look for it tonight; it's a big cross that overlays the Milky Way.
Pivoting from mythology, I'd love to call out the lines from "Honey Water," "The lure of honey water draws you from my arms." The whole song feels like losing control of a relationship, especially the long, repetitive outro. I love how it feels like it's actively coming undone.
In Crying in H Mart, Michelle Zauner talks about how she always had the tendency to assume the worst, and was intensely paranoid during her childhood, often fearing that her parents were dead when they weren't home. Our attachment figures may change from parents to partners as we age, but that anxious attachment style can remain the same. "Picture Window" feels like she still has that same feeling of paranoia, but this time with a romantic partner. "Do you not conceive of my death at every minute? / While your life passes you by?... All of my ghosts are real / all of my ghosts are my home."
These references and lyrics reinforce the album's themes of emotional disarray and how love can be both beautiful and ruinous. Gorgeous.
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